One of the Guys
by MidKnight Rider
Summary: Tag to In The Line of Duty. The guys try to help Sam over the emotional trauma of being blended with Jolinar. This is another response to the "Jack and Daniel Do Lunch" series (even though there is no actual lunch involved here) and a request for Sam and ice cream sundaes.


"Okay," Jack said, "So Carter seems a little….."

When Jack trailed off Daniel said, helpfully, "Down-."

"Down," Jack went on, "What exactly are we going to do about it. Suggestions?"

Two sets of eyes stared back at him – one bright blue and guileless behind round glasses; one dark and baleful. He stared back hard at both of them.

"Look, just to clarify," he said, "This resounding silence? Not so much a suggestion."

The silence lasted a few moments longer.

"Well what did you do when the members of your Special Forces team were…. Down?" Daniel asked.

Jack glared as if Daniel had said something sacrilegious, as if Special Force personnel _never_ got depressed. Then he sighed.

"There was drinking involved," he answered, "Lots of drinking, usually beer." He paused and looked inward, hesitant before adding, "and women. There were women."

Daniel shook his head. "I don't think that will work with Sam."

"Ya think?" Jack snapped.

"No, I don't think," Daniel answered, "That's why I phrased it the way I did. We need to do something else for Sam."

Jack and Daniel glanced at Teal'c, who remained silent. Jack leaned towards Daniel.

"Were you waiting for him to say 'Indeed'? I know I was," he whispered.

Teal'c's eyebrow arched.

"This is not helping Sam," Daniel said. "Teal'c, you led armies, had a personal guard. What did you do for morale?"

Teal'c's baleful regard landed heavily on Daniel. "There were two solutions. The offending Jaffa was offered exile or death if he did not change his ways. In the case of more valuable Jaffa there was ritual combat to the death."

Daniel's jaw dropped. Jack's worked up and down a few times but no sound came out. The three men stared at each other for a while longer. Finally Daniel spoke.

"Well, what does Sam like to do?"

"Fiddle with… stuff," Jack said. "Speak in techno-babble. Take stuff apart…"

"I meant for fun," Daniel said.

"So did I!" Jack protested.

Which left them all staring at each other again.

Daniel lost patience then. He wasn't actually a very patient man, Jack had discovered.

"This is ridiculous! We've been a team for over a year, risked our lives together, held each other when we were sick and bleeding and _we have no idea what Sam likes to do for fun?_ Doesn't she mean any more to us than that? This is _Sam_ and she just went through hell. I know it worked out but did any of us really want to find out what it was like to be a host? She's hurting and we have to help!_"_

"No one's arguing that!" Jack stated just to get Daniel down off his rant.

"So what do we _do?"_ Daniel demanded.

Silence again, broken at last by Teal'c.

"Perhaps Janet Fraisier can help."

Daniel blinked. Jack looked thoughtful.

"They do hang out together," Jack said.

"I'll ask her," Daniel said.

The other two didn't protest. Daniel was already out the door.

(0)

The three of them had gathered in Daniel's office.

"Janet said what?"

"She likes ice cream. Sam does. Likes ice cream,"Daniel answered. His eyes were fastened on his computer screen as he typed.

"So what are you doing?"

"Googling Colorado Springs, best ice cream," Daniel paused and turned to look at Jack over the top of his glasses. "Unless you already know the best ice cream place in town?"

"Can't we just get some in the commissary?" Jack asked.

"No," Daniel answered, clicking 'enter' and sitting back.

"Get a couple of quarts and go back to her place?" Jack went on.

Daniel turned all the way around and looked at him, stunned. "Do you really know less about women than _I _do?"

Jack clamped his mouth shut and managed to look innocent.

"Well, no, but Sam's a …you know," Jack made a gesture with his hand as if he was pushing the word he wanted for Daniel to snatch out of the air.

"She's a girl. You might have noticed."

"Oh, I've noticed," Jack muttered.

Beside him Teal'c chuckled. _(Chuckled!) _A year ago they wouldn't have gotten so much as a smirk out of him. Jack found that he missed those days. He was working on a scathing comment when Daniel said,

"Josh and John's."

"Who?"

"Not who, where. It's rated the best ice cream in the Springs."

"Where is it then?"

"On Aurora. Shouldn't be hard to find."

"They serve food too?"

"Yes, and they're open till ten."

"Military discount?"

"Jack!"

"What?"

Daniel glared at him and then checked the screen again. "Yes," he said, tightly.

Jack nodded, hopped off the lab stool. "I'll go get her."

(0)

He found her in the lab with the broken apart pieces of some do-hickey spread on the table. Jack was smart enough to know that those pieces represented an attempt to install infrared scanning to the MALP. He also knew this was something that should challenge Sam like a one hundred piece preschool puzzle.

He was smart enough not to give away what he knew. He leaned in the doorway, shoulder against the jamb and hands shoved in his pockets.

"Whatcha doin'?" He asked.

"Nothing," she answered, expression and eyes as cool as a winter pond.

Daniel was right. Since the death of Jolinar Sam had been fraying around the edges. There was a cool detachment in her manner, holding them all at arm's length in a way he hadn't seen before. He'd picked an argument with her two days earlier; not on purpose but because he was pissed about her being taken as a host and didn't know where else to lash out. She'd roused herself out of her depression long enough to snap back at him that he had no idea what he was talking about. Then she had strategically withdrawn back over the line of insubordination.

Jack had been leading men long enough to know that sometimes it was just a matter of waiting, for the dam to break, the ice to thaw. But Daniel was right there too. He had no idea what Sam needed.

And he had given her all the time he was willing to.

"So the team's going out," he said.

She just looked back at him with that cool, blue gaze.

"You comin'?" he asked.

"Am I part of the team?"

"Yep," he stood up, came off the wall onto the balls of his feet. There had been something of a challenging in her tone. He had the authority to kick her off the team of course, if he thought there was a need to.

He hoped there wasn't a need to, but he had to pull her out of this funk.

"We're leaving in half an hour. Dress casual," he said and then sauntered off before she could speak.

(0)

Sam hesitated outside the door of the ice cream shop and stared at the brightly colored décor and chalkboard menu. It was late enough in the evening for the 'family' crowd to be gone. The place was full of teens and young couples. Sam glanced behind her at her team. They were going to stick out like the Chrysler Building on Chulak.

"This is where we're going?" She said.

"Yeah, why?" Daniel asked.

She looked at Jack. "I thought we were going out to… you know, a bar."

"Why?"

"It's Friday night."

Jack gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. "Place closes at ten. So you never know."

Sam gave him a calculated frown but Daniel was holding the door for her and they were waiting for her to go in first, so she did.

Jack got them a table in the corner and handed Sam a menu.

"Whatever you want," he said, "This is on me."

Sam was still looking back and forth among the men on her team – who were all staring back with poker faces.

"I want a hot fudge sundae, as big as they come, extra whipped cream and nuts. No cherry."

She hadn't even glanced at the menu.

"No cherry?" Jack repeated.

"No, they're… icky. Too sweet."

Jack nodded. He waited until Daniel and Teal'c had decided. Then he got up and went to the counter and ordered. He didn't come back until he had a tray of sundaes and four glasses of water.

He put everything on the table and sat back down. He watched Sam anxiously as she ate.

"Okay?" He asked.

"yes," she answered. "It's delicious. Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?"

"What makes you think something is going on?" Daniel asked, pausing with a spoonful of caramel sundae halfway to his mouth.

"We're out on some team-bonding thing on a Friday night and it's _ice cream_?"

In overlapping voices Daniel said "Why not ice cream?" while Jack said, "What makes you think this is about team bonding?"

Sam looked first at Daniel. "_Why _ice cream?" and then at Jack, "It's not about the team?"

"No," Jack said at the same time Daniel said, "Because _you _like ice cream."

Jack shot Daniel a pointed look. "Stop that."

Daniel glared back, shook his head and went back to eating.

"So we're doing this for me?" Sam asked. For the first time she looked a little blank.

"Yeah," Jack said, "The one who goes through hell gets to pick the place. House rules."

"I didn't pick this," Sam pointed out.

"Well, no," Jack hedged, "But you like it. Right?"

Sam looked around. "Yeah," she said, "It's different; not a bar."

The men exchanged conversational looks and then Daniel said, "You don't always have to be one of the guys, Sam." He kept his eyes down, watching his sundae carefully. When she didn't answer he looked up and went on, "Sometimes, you know, it's okay to be…."

"A girl?" Sam guessed.

"I was going to say, just Sam," Daniel finished.

Sam considered that as she dug the long spoon down passed the whipped cream to get to the fudge and ice cream.

Just Sam who wasn't blended. Just Sam who wasn't still carrying around a Tok'ra symbiote who had changed everything she thought she knew about the Goa'uld and their parasitical nature.

Just Sam who had three men who loved her enough to eat ice cream on a Friday night.

"Just Sam who likes ice cream?" She said, at last.

Surprisingly it was Jack who answered. "Yeah," he said, "That's the one."

Jack could see that she was starting to relax. Getting her to talk was a matter of a little more time and she'd probably talk to Daniel and not him but that was okay. Her eyes no longer look like a pond in winter, hiding an icy uncertain disquiet. The thaw had started.

They ate and talked and stayed until the place closed. Then they stood on the sidewalk for a moment in the soft, dark summer night.

"So, back to the Base?" Jack asked.

"We'd probably find a bunch of people from the SGC at O'Malleys," Daniel pointed out.

"They have beer," Sam noted.

"Whatever happened to being just Sam?" Jack asked, as they turned to head back to where his pickup was parked on the street.

Sam smiled, a ray of sun in the dark. "There's always Rose tequila shots," she said.

"Rose tequila?" Jack repeated.

"You wouldn't understand," Sam said, "It's a girl thing."

(0)

A/N Bluemoonmaverick has written a lovely tag to this tag called Close to the Line. Sam/Jack centric and lovely in a bittersweet way. What happened after O'Malley's?


End file.
